Sean Payton Tells The Truth
Last night, during the Hall of Fame game broadcast, the booth was having a conversation with Aaron Rodgers. They were talking about Nate Hackett. Rodgers was obviously very favorable to his friend and coach, only going so far as to say he had some “growing pains” in Denver last year. Notably, very little of the conversation was about Nate as a coach and much of it revolved around how Nate’s just a good guy. That might have said more than it needed to.
Sean Payton, on the other hand, said the quiet part loud. God I missed him.
Payton ripped ass all over Hackett last week, calling his stint in Denver last season one of the worst head coaching jobs in NFL history. It obviously caused discourse because you rarely ever see coaches say something so bluntly and directly. In fact, when Hackett finally addressed the comments earlier this week, that was his main point of contention. Payton broke an unwritten code of not being a meany bitch to fellow coaches. It’s true, coaches almost never directly criticize each other for anything. They know they can’t because it’ll turn into a media problem just like this did. Payton would sort of apologize for the comments later on, claiming he was still wearing his “FOX Analyst” hat and not his coaching hat.
Honestly, Payton’s always been a shit-stirrer jackass and that’s kind of what makes him fun. More importantly, while he can be criticized for saying it…was he wrong? He was not wrong. Hackett’s 2022 season in Denver was an unmitigated disaster; one that would have been far more widely mocked if we hadn’t just had Urban Meyer one year earlier. Hackett was brought on to woo Aaron Rodgers. It didn’t work. He was given a QB most people still thought was pretty good and went and had the worst offensive year you could imagine. Constant time management issues. Horrible playcalling. Absolute waste of a high-caliber defense. Hackett didn’t even survive a single season before getting sent packing. He’s not the worst coach of all time but he’s in the top 10, maybe top 5.
Now this season we have some very funny potential outcomes. If Denver sucks and the Jets are good, the Jets can fire back. If Denver is good and the Jets suck, Payton can shit talk even more. If both suck, it’s very funny. If both are good, well I guess good for them.
I need to rev up my Hate Engine for the season, this seems like a good topic get in the groove. *cracks knuckles*
I think it’s hilarious that coaches have such fragile egos that they need an unwritten code not to openly talk about each other’s failures. Why don’t they expand this rule to encompass their players? Whether it’s respectful or malicious, almost every coach in the league will stand in front of a microphone and negatively evaluate the performance of their players. Are they such fragile little babies that they can’t take the heat themselves?
Hackett would have come out better for this if he took the hit and just moved on without getting whiny about it. “Boo hoo, he bwoke the code and hurt my widdle feewings.” Rodgers decision to specifically go with “keep my coach’s name out of your mouth” just makes it even more hilarious. The “smartest guy in the room” is going to make comments that openly hearken back to Will Smith’s crybaby assault, when he slapped Chris Rock and then whined repeatedly that he needed to keep his wife’s name out of his mouth?
While I normally view the Jets as lovable clowns who fail in the most hilarious ways (outside of their dipshit and professional Trump c$#&@!cker owner), my hatred of Discount Double Choke demands that I root for their abysmal failure this year. If the losses can perpetually come at the hands of Rodgers and his BFF, well, all the merrier.
That “unwritten code” is why you always see the same few names getting recycled every other year. I’m all for coaches calling out other coaches’ BS, especially when it’s blatantly obvious. Sean Payton called it how literally *everyone* saw it, including the organization that decided that Hackett’s work was so terrible that they fired him after one whole season, and all Hackett could do was cry about breaking a code. Even he couldn’t defend that total failure of a coaching job.
Hackett’s tenure was the fifth since the merger to in fact NOT reach “one whole season”.
I honestly forgot that he got fired before the season ended.
How much of an unwritten code is it though?
While all “unwritten codes” in sports are generally dumb, to my mind they should at least be longstanding and near universal to be considered a true “unwritten code”. It seems to me there’s a decent enough tradition of coaches busting on other coaches throughout the decades to say this isn’t a real unwritten code. Didn’t Buddy Ryan and Mike Ditka famously go after each other non-stop in the late 80’s? While we’re on the topic of the Jets, didn’t Eric Mangini make a fool of himself taking shots at Belichick in the late 00s? Also, while I don’t recall any specifics, I seem to recall Jimmy Johnson makings digs against Barry Switzer.
Payton talks a lot of smack for a guy that “retired” as soon as the Saints went into a rebuild. He is a decent coach, and obviously better than Hackett. But he is also the douchebag that got suspended for trying to injure players. He’s a sack of shit imo.
Ehhh… like most recent NFL “scandals”, Payton got punished for doing something most teams were doing to some degree. Not unlike “Spygate”, we’ve heard countless former players and coaches talk about how the general idea of “bounties” was commonplace. Heck, earlier in the same calendar year where Payton was suspended, Giants players talked about how they target 49ers punt returner Kyle Williams in the NFCG because of his history of concussions (and plays involving Williams led directly to the Giants winning that game)
(Note: This doesn’t mean I like or condone the practice of trying to injure players. Or that I take anything away from either the Saints or Giants for winning the associated Super Bowls).
Gregg Williams certainly backed it with cartoonish levels of violence in speeches and metaphors, and they had the bad fortune of getting caught on tape with *someone* saying something about getting paid for it. Much like “Spygate”, the Saints situation may have been the most extreme example of it. But I think Payton was caught in one of the many situations where Roger decided to make an example of one person for something that was happening a lot of places – probably in hopes of dissuading others.
Does it make Sean Payton a hero, or an innocent? Definitely not
Does it make him a sack of shit than a lot of other NFL coaches for things they’ve done? Not in my book anyway
I miss hobo Payton.
Payton’s retirement was almost a decade after the suspension and scandal. I’m calling Payton a quitter and hypocrite for not wanting to do a rebuild in NOLA, then criticizing Hackett for failing in a rebuild situation in Denver. I am calling him and Gregg Williams (whom I hate for his Bills days as well) pieces of shit.
Were last year’s Broncos a rebuild though? They were expected to be competitive. A rebuild to my mind has to be done consciously with realistic intent.
That said Payton absolutely bailed to avoid a rebuild (not that I’d have blamed him).
I agree with all that, but he’s still not *wrong* here. Hackett was godawful and it was pretty obvious. I don’t think excoriating someone for saying something plainly correct is generally a great thing to do
Payton was right, but he is a smug douche. The fact he got so few titles out of such a great core in NOLA is indicative that he isn’t as talented as he makes himself out to be. McVay, Shanahan and Arians have gotten further with less honestly.
I absolutely agree Payton is a dbag, and I despised the guy when he was the OC for the Giants in the early aughts. BUT. “So few titles” is something I hear people throw around like winning Super Bowls is just a pull on the pez dispenser. Since 2000… Bill Belichick, Tom Coughlin, and Andy Reid are the ONLY coaches to get their team 2 or more Super Bowl wins. Let’s not pretend a coach who only gets his team one ring is some kind of underperforming shmuck. Winning one ring is hard, winning more than one ring significantly moreso, and if we need another reason to hate the Patriots Dynasty, it’s that they minimized the value of a single Super Bowl win.
The Saints are also a team that are pretty famous for getting robbed in the playoffs lol
On the bright side, it means there is better chances of coaches running up the score on Sean Payton.
Sean Payton is an illimitable turd bag. One of my fondest memories as a Vikings fan is seeing him mock the Skol chant in the playoffs…..and then proceeding to watch as Stefon Diggs dunk on his shitty team in a moment that will ensure his douchbaggery and summary comeuppance are remembered forever. Fuck Sean Payton.
But like you said, Dave….he’s not wrong. On paper, the Denver Broncos should not have stumbled as woefully as they did last year. There was just too much talent on that squad to end up with a top-5 pick in the draft ( which they didn’t even get lol). I know everybody loves to dunk on Russ because he’s lame, but he’s NOT a bad QB. He’s never been a bad QB. Nathaniel Hackett made him a bad QB. He showed a fundamental lack of understanding for his offensive personnel, and wasted a year of a very good (though still young) defense. We don’t need to protect Nathaniel Hackett. If we called out bad coaches more and stopped giving praise to guys who don’t deserve it, we wouldn’t have to waste fans’ time dealing with these crappy 2-3 year burn out periods dealing with incompetent coaches. Hackett was bad. Saturday was bad. It’s okay. Move on and get some new thought leaders in the space. Stop treating these failsons, propped up by generational play from their players, with kids gloves and call it out.
So…..thanks, Sean Payton….but also fuck you, Sean Payton.
On the other hand, I work in a very small niche industry where the same few dozen specialists are involved in everything, and constantly are moving between companies. There is a reason you don’t publicly and spectacularly burn bridges. The next time you’re looking for a job, someone is going to have to think to themselves, “Is this guy going to mouth off about us when it suits his needs?”
Payton probably has enough clout and cash that he isn’t worried about it impacting his future prospects, but I strongly recommend most people not follow his lead.
It was over for Hackett when he chose to try a 64 yard field goal in Seattle in Week 1.
hard to beat bobby petrino for worst head coaching job ever but urban meyer makes a compelling argument
Days since I’ve had to see Sean “Butthole Mouth” Peyton’s face: 0
always a sorrowful occasion to have to reset that counter
>Time management issues
The crowd was literally chanting the play clock to avoid delay of games. I’ve never seen something so basic fail in such a ridiculous fashion on a professional level of sports.